your kiss
is my snowflake

no two the same
and yet to fall

like a word nobody utters
in case they say it wrong

the others are like kites
tiny blue specks

blending in with the clouds
or a car in the fast lane

watching countryside
***** by in an avocado slush

there’s a lexicon
to be discovered

while fragile words
stain friends like coffee

if they’re not careful
or allow themselves

to be cracked
as a lightbulb on the floor

Lost it.
Lost. It.
That’s what he said.
Lost it, last night, her place.
Not a phone or the house keys,
you know what.
Mutual, so that was a relief.
It was the lunchtime
that sent them all flocking.
A horde of eyes honed in on him,
excitement swimming in the air,
questions ready to hop
off from their tongues.
Nothing unexpected.
It is what it is, what we were taught.
He felt glad, a burden, a flaw
wrenched out from him
as though a sickness
swept away from within.

He said he wasn’t one of them anymore,
as though he’d moved into a new club
where this was the norm,
weekend gettings-it-on in bedrooms
riddled with indie-rock band posters
and a floral bedspread.
I asked him where he’d lost it.
Would he ever get it back,
like a football
punted into a hedge long ago?
A quizzical look.
I thought of everybody I knew
losing things, dropping that word
from their dictionaries
and scrawling something new
with a new body,
a sensation never quite like the first time.
Years disappeared,
myself the blank domino
among the pack.
I wonder if he can recall her name.
I didn’t admire him.
I was still one of them,
still am one of them
but there are no sighs.
It is only a moment of a moment
in a chapter in a story
that has yet to begin,
and I’ll decide
when the page is turned.

You're off again
and I'm left with residues
like fingerprints on a frosty window

I see bubbles everywhere
all too temporary
awaiting their rapid deaths

you're part of the transparent clique
glistening - unavailable
another noiseless vanish

(her name washes up on the shore
my private shipwreck
except I'm not the only one
who knows
there's no blue smudge on my thumb
from where she spilt her breath

blossoms elsewhere
stop yourself before the vowels
bleed through)

and you choke on the smoke
of your past

The man who scored a hat-trick
is having a baby. OK, he’s not,
his girlfriend is. A baby.
They’re all having babies.
A twenty inch squirm
swaddled by a blanket,
eyes like marbles. All having them.
It seems so. Either that
or they’re getting married.
The biggest day of big days, apparently.
Soon there will be invites. Maybe.
Showing off the calligraphy.
I can picture it,
a suit creased once, a glass of fizz
as a stranger takes photos
to be tucked inside albums
I’ll never take a look at.
Those I’ve known know others now.
They are settling into a life
that writes itself, like a book
never moved from its place
on the shelf. There will be
a triangle of kids kissing
before you ever did,
hands fumbling as if the other person
is a button, noses bumping.
There will be a house
with a dishwasher and pictures
on the walls from the honeymoon
in Greece you didn’t know about
- perhaps don’t care.
Soon you and they will be thirty
and forty and fifty
and their squirm will grow
before you’ve even blinked
or had time to toast the bread.
Some already have.
The hat-trick man is smiling.
I should proffer congratulations,
type out ‘bundle of joy’
at the pencil-esque ultrasound,
the shapes that will become human.
We’re the same age, miles apart.
They’re all at it, it seems.
The girlfriends that is. Having babies.

It’s a heat that skims
off from the ground
and soaks the bones.
Music burrows
into the ears of suited men,
eating calorie-clogged burgers,
dripping onions
and then you’re in
a restaurant with blue tiles
hugging someone you haven’t seen
in six years
and time slips as treacle
under lights
in the bowl you sit in
with UFO’s blooming on the ceiling
like mammary flowers
and there’s a woman
with a bra on her head,
blonde hair like a mini blizzard
as for a moment
a throng of teenagers
in stripy socks
share sweat to Fleetwood Mac,
bees shimmying at something pretty.
It’s a scene you couldn’t picture,
except you could,
everybody has their phone out,
a flurry of colours
and drumming that drums
into your skull
like a shot of adrenaline.
Businessmen outside
swallow wine,
sit on the tube with blue ties
and rustle
the Evening Standard and its headlines
streaked with gloom.
Ticking towards Tuesday,
another man
eats another burger.
The hours pass,
the heat stays,
the music remains.

the sea will take you
if you let it
so don’t let it

the horizon
is a riddle
you’ll never reach
or come to answer

but there are bright faces
on the shore
poised to haul you
out from the crumbling waves

with hot chocolate
ready in a large black mug
and words from their throats
that will warm your core

Blue shirt
I can’t trust a boy like you.
Sectarian sympathiser,
driving brothers apart.

I see a glint in your eye
whenever I
lean in for the unanswered kiss
self-assuredness is your favourite

amuse bouche. Nice with a fine wine
tastes a little like shellfish.
Picpoul de Pinet
for a girl that’s hardy on the outside.

Just when I am starting to turn
purple on the lips
you breathe air into me
and hide again.

----------

Believe me,
there’s red in these veins
and flames in my lungs.
Your eyes

eye me up, river blue.
Chip fat and *** smoke
make out for a foul cloud but
girl, you’re the pearl of the night.

Your mouth is the glossy phone
I should answer,
wanting love on a tongue
like a pillow of wine.

When you grip my shirt,
expect to connect, I end up
pouring out puddles of nothing,
your lips apart like violets.

the heartbeat rumble
in your ears
is the signal
you’ve been waiting for
   a warning
that too much
has piled up
and your head
has gone all Kandinsky
   blood lights
blinking like sequins
in the crook of your vision
   tangle of duvet
half lolloped on the floor
   echo
of a neighbour’s conversation
a gloopy mumble
through the walls
   and you’re thinking
of skin the colour of wheat
un-lipsticked lips
   a song that hasn’t been written
but the words exist
longing for you to pluck them
like a novel from a shelf
in a second-hand shop
   a thunderclap
snaps you back
to the same room
the same face
looking back from the mirror
with its wet blueberry eyes
   and you say
you have a story
fashioned from mashed potato
and sticky tape
   all it needs is a listener
to kiss a whisper
to your neck
drip syllables
that glow as torches
tell you everything is fine
   your listener
as the shower rain
leaves a network of streets
jogging down your cheeks

I didn’t want to.
He’d just got in from work
and flung the keys
into the bowl
so the clatter rattled
into the kitchen
where I was taking out
the chocolate fingers
from the Sainsbury’s bag
and I still hadn’t shut
the fridge door
so my right arm
was going cold.

He came up behind me
and groaned
and I assumed it meant
he’d had a long day
except everybody’s day
is the same length
but he put his arms around
my chest
subtracted the bottle
of Gordon’s gin
from the bag
and said we’ll be drinking
some of that tonight
I could do with it.

Then it came.
He asked if I’d called.
I said no because
what am I supposed to say
it’s too far to drive
on a Friday night
and they’ve got roadworks
on that roundabout still
but he butted in
like a cough in a quiet room
and said fish
and chips for tea then
been a while.

Picked up the phone
offered it to me
as though a pig’s ear
to a Labrador
and I thought stuff it
as he shut the fridge
so I reluctantly poked
at the numbers
and heard the bloop
again and again
and said to my mother
how’s this evening.

Sorry yes sorry
what yeah OK
no better right I see
yeah my fault I know
that long right yeah
so half seven
yep OK half seven.

It’s just I don’t like
the idea of monitors
and plastic-y tubes
and doctors with PhD’s
spurting words
buried in a dictionary’s depths
but he put his hands
around my chest again
and we said nothing
for a moment or two
until he said
I’m going for a shower babe
alright.

the picture

sloshes into view

like a wave on a beach

you haven’t discovered yet

there’s a tree outside

whose leaves quiver

like green flames

and there are books

on the coffee table

worn at the middle

from finger-flicking

in a lake of boredom


you are clinging


onto a voice that radiates

out from the walls

but you don’t know

where it’s coming from

but like a note on the piano

or the branch of rain

that leaves a slippery avenue

on your windowpane

you want it to stay

so you can hear it again

the cool cadence

flooding the room

There’s a clumsiness
to the way I unbutton my shirt,
hoist it over my head
and let it snuffle to the floor.

I stand there, *******
and unkempt armpit hair on display
but you’ve already almost
totally disrobed,

the light from outside
licking your spine,
dribbling down a leg
like melted sunflower petals.

We catch each other’s eyes,
except you don’t catch eyes,
you see the other person
looking at you
and you know what’s next,

the standing ****,
dry skin and bellybuttons
viewed only by a fortunate few,
a bunch of names
like grapes squashed
into bed sheets
we won’t touch again.

I think this is supposed to be sexier,
my underwear flinging off,
boxer shorts champagne cork
towards the window,
your bra sunny side up
by the foot of the door.

Rather I watch you
peer at the skin I’m in
waiting for a shrill buzzer sound,
a number out of ten
and a spatter of applause
from a conjured-up crowd.

I think you look glorious.
I go to say this but my brain feels
as though it’s been whisked.
You walk over, slink your hands
towards my face,
put an icicle finger to my lips.
I’ve no idea what I’m doing
but you’ll show me the way.

you are the darkest thing
I’ve ever known

gulp you like oxygen
arrhythmic tick in my lungs

static-crackling
in the pit of night

the seams bubble apart
our plot thick as blood

scrunch your eyes tight enough
and the scene will play
the way you wrote it

give me smoke
and your labyrinth fingerprints
on the throat of a bottle

brand me with lipstick stains
my own shimmering pools of ruby
straight from the angel's mouth

hop-skip of our words
like stained-glass window
dragonfly wings

swelling with colour
but careful! they'll break
if you squeeze them too hard

let's pretend the morning
sleeps on the horizon
a charcoal galaxy of days away

we'll go walking together
in the summer dark
and forget what we're supposed to do
with our hearts

Just because you have gone
   does not mean
when the bulbs flicker
the letters of your name
are no longer ablaze
the pages of our stories
do not yellow

when the night
unfurls its intense blackness
licks the houses
expunges the light
   it does not mean
we have forgotten the moments
that made you shimmer
as a glorious star
in a boundless sky

the days to come
are cracked with cold
but there is warmth
to be found
in the sound of your smile
which doesn’t go
but only echoes   on

now and again it goes
it only echoes   on

She was fascinated,
hooked as if a fish out of water.
Whenever death
was splurged across the television
she’d sit upright,
the sofa would creak,
her eyes gorging all
like globs of kitchen roll.
Two per second.
She thought she’d solve them,
bust the case wide open
or some other cliché.
Reams of unresolved stories,
of women splayed
at American roadsides
with a missing molar
or red rings around the wrist.
There had to be an answer, she’d say.
Everything has answers
because everyone asks questions.
A human doesn’t go missing,
someone always sees, apparently.
She’d talk about dying
as if she welcomed it,
as if it was a real person
with bones and a voice.
One day she sliced her finger
and just let it bleed,
the thin line then the bloom
of crimson that wept
into the sink.
Two per second she’d remind me.
I scrambled in the drawer
for a plaster.

We died many times when we first met.
They’d say electric. You provided the shock.
I was in need of repairs,
a faulty motor with a clogged-up engine,
stumbling through life
like a Slinky
yawning its bones
down the stairs.

You played me well at first,
fingers on my body,
twiddled me back into tune.
We’d die again.
When we kissed
I tasted Malboro and Merlot.
I fell right into it,
you like a glossy new balloon,
a chaos of colour on my lips
left me spellbound.
We’d die again.
Then the moment would pop.
You’d be standing with a pin.

Met your parents.
They noddingly-approved between
gulps of Heineken,
but I knew we wouldn’t last.
It fell apart, of course.
Somebody ruined the jigsaw.
Started hurling snowballs
at each other, words like razors
shredding through the air.
We’d die again.

A slammed door, gone
to the corner-shop for milk
in a huff.
An eff-you blurting
out from the phone.
The shock had gone.
I think I’m dying again.

I.
a body
embraced by stinging nettles

a mind
encased by bricks of ice

a tale
smothered by spiky wire

a voice
strangled by invisible rope


II.
hold your heart
in the flat of your hand

who’ll keep it beating
but you

or a stranger with wings
pretty

bubbles popping
from their mouth


III.
silence squashing
your rib cage

a train derailed
traffic jam

dreams don’t go
the way you dreamt them

there’s gold if you make it
over the hill


IV.
give me your life
by the mugful

aches and yawns
slide into Monday

Tuesday Anyday
minutes like piano keys

hours made of violin strings
burnt-throat laughter

where the bonfire began.
Where your golden syllables were sewn
onto the tapestry of a city.
I can imagine the swirl of your dress,
the feverish squawk of jazz
rebounding from the ceiling.
Few alive who’d remember.
Few witnesses who saw
you gnaw on his cheek, draw blood.

Sixty-one years later.
The hubbub of tourists,
a swell of shop windows.
They do not think of you, but I do.
I think of Ross, Myers, Huws,
the Weissborts and Minton,
and you two, the first lightning-white boom
that triggered a lust, a love,
a marriage.

What verses will form next?
I hope for platinum language,
dialogue free from bloated pauses.
If only a while, I’ll hold it somewhere
in the walls of my mind for life.

It got so bad
he couldn’t sleep.
Frenzied bedsheets,
pillow a swamp of sweat.
He’d swig milk
from the carton,
eyes a crush of crimson
and wouldn’t say a thing.

Then he’d mention he could hear them still.
The duh-duh-duh-duh of bullets
zooming towards strangers,
the thunderous stomach-rumble
of an erupting grenade.
I’d grip his hand and he’d cry,
shake his head, trickle out names.
I couldn’t help so I cried too.
The therapist would ****** tissues at us.

I’d be careful with noises.
If I dropped something
he’d shoot up like
an electric-shocked puppet.
Body at home,
mind at war.
He smelt death in the air,
the energy sapping from his body
as if a pin had perforated his skin.

I had to drag him up
from the bathroom floor,
as if a putrid corpse
wrenched from a river.
     Why is it me?
     What did I fight for?
That’s what he asked me.
I didn’t know, wouldn’t know,
and we cradled each other
as the shower spat out water
for a minute, for an hour.

you cannot fall in love
with strangers
you fall in love
with the idea
create a filter
a sort of cellophane wrapper
dangled in front of the eyes
and everything sweeps
virus-like into colour

you’re lapping it up
a thirsty hound
making an accent that fits
as if whisking ingredients
until the texture’s correct
the two of you together
in scenarios that’ll never happen
a matinee showing
on the cinema screen in your head

you’ll picture it
and it will feel real
but you’ve fashioned a fiction
bleeding with improbable chapters
the idea a supernova
real life a distant planet

Your body is as dark as the night
and I love it

if only I could slip
into your shadow

when the lights expire

my breaths
wouldn’t feel like flames

blossoming in my chest

A stroke they said.
Came along like a puncture,
eked the breath out from him.
Not a surprise but still
a hot bullet to the chest.
Been told his organs
were wilting with age,
raisin wrinkles sprinkled
across a seven-decade face.

Wheeled the body away,
blades of grey hair,
lumpy veins that tore
through his skin.
He knew it was coming.
Wished to kiss his wife again,
eleven years after their last.
Her name was Mary I think.
Cancer.

Had a passion for horses.
Just yesterday
put a fiver on Lust for Life
and Magic Touch.
Both came in, he’d have had
fifty quid. Lucky ***.
At the bookies they all loved him.
When I collected his winnings
I had to explain.

I think they knew
before I opened my mouth.

place your ear to the Wall
it’s OK
they can’t hear

somebody’s Coughing
and somewhere
she is Pouring
a cup of tea

the steam up Ups
sticks to the windows

Stand
in a place where
the buildings are old
but New to them

you could be there
Burnt tongue
Jittery fingers

squashed by noise
encased in Foil

you don’t tie shoelaces
clear your throat
and slap a Face on
that’ll Do

the specks could be
Floating away
concerns brought
down South

their smile is Honey
your Head is baking a cake

listening?
heard Enough
Windows watch you
watch yourself
Drink

my answers are mossy pebbles

take them
clean them

peg me to the line

and let the breeze ransack
this body

bones tightened with wire

muscles that scrunch
as carrier bags

there are puddles
they’ve existed longer

stop the rain
flowers don’t sing

they chatter in colour
if you paint them in

I.
Snowman in the park,
not there yesterday
but watching all this morning,
eyes that don’t blink,
black as a crow.

II.
Children **** him
with a vegetable,
a tartan scarf throttles
his frozen throat.

III.
Button-like holes
form a grin,
a banana of circles
fingertip-made.

IV.
Sphere of snow nearby,
an unfinished friend,
project abandoned.

V.
Went to see it,
the skinny veins
of our footprints
a chain around
its podgy white body.

VI.
Sun sploshes the face,
squeak as we touched
its cheek,
residue on our gloves,
signs of decay.

VII.
Doesn’t talk
but sits ignorant,
questions not answered.
Kids get bored.

VIII.
Why will he vanish?
Everything is temporary
a parent explains,
cold as a cube of ice.

VIIII.
Days later
we see it crumble,
great clumps that slump
to the ground,
shedding limbs.

X.
Gone until the next time
I say.
Gone and forgotten,
I bring the scarf back in.

you’re telling me something
yes

     I know

this is a game you play
and I’m caught up

a scrap
    
     of debris

in your Kansas storm


each move we make
is dangerously
exciting

or the other
way around

or not exciting

     at all

words like cracking eggs

enough for weeks


your story changes
every time

truth

lost in the wind

ghosts don’t scare me

     real people do


if I’ve gone quite mad
you’ve fixed me this way

You take a picture
of a woman taking a picture
of the view
you can see,
the pastel tones sloshing
into one another,
synchronised just right tonight.
Steel blue that gives way
to tufts of lilac,
to a pink grapefruit wave,
the reflection glazed
to the glass beside you.
Slurry of chat in the air,
tourists and locals
hugged by coats,
sharing the same space,
silver breath that idles
before it scarpers.
Minute cubes of light
**** out across the water,
your city painted
in beautiful shades.

I don’t have to make much of a sound.
I can let the sentences coalesce
in the air, a dual carriageway of words
interspersed with a laugh.
The names I store are few.
I don’t have to yank them
from the chest, swipe off clumps of dust -
they glow when they need to
like fireflies swaying in the night.
I dribble out my current affairs,
watery vowels from my mouth.
Am I boring you?
Voice like an elderly hoover,
interest tumbling down the stairs.
You’ve done more in five minutes
than I have in five weeks.
I blink, then I sink.
It’s OK.
The days of rapid chat
are six feet under,
flaws knocked out of shot,
not as blindingly bright.
I wonder where you were years ago.
We’d know more;
my gawky movements less present,
my mind not pulsing
with impossible possibilities.
Still I shudder at the distance between us.
Pauses plump as bubbles
that can’t be popped.
The flow halted
by my wodge of insecurity.
No bother.
I swallow what I can,
let the taste coat my throat.
If you sparkle
you can help me too
without being aware.
The sludge will vanish for a while.
You don’t even have to make
too much of a sound.

Hear the ***** of glasses,
shriek of chairs against wood,
photos streamed across walls
elbowing for attention.
Smell the sawdust simmer from the floor,
knife-carved letters etched
decades before by dead hands,
wishbones strewn around
by lads who never returned.
The stubbly Irish guy pours a McSorley,
watch the marigold glug into the mug
and froth over the top.
A gaggle of women natter at the back,
the flatscreen, out of place, chatting away too.

Oh old sport,
it crumbles around me.
The lights have dimmed
to a feeble moan,
my reveries like shirts
idly blowing in the air,
head heavy as morphine.

I feel my heart throb
like a defective clock
as cool fall rain slithers
down the windows.
Every set of eyes
has turned away;
now sad spheres
that gaze elsewhere.

Her voice was my wild tonic,
her figure an enchanting breeze.
We’d unravel as hanks of wool,
kisses that would leave
a tingle on our lips.
There are no pills for what is now.
Past moments entombed
behind frosted glass.
Agitations that turn me
into a sugar-rushed flea.  

Look now Jay.
The water an awful, inky blue,
the pool a somnolent cavity.
I wish to fix it,
to slot the pieces into place,
the seconds flitting by
as if ash in the wind.
A pinprick of green
glimmers in the distance.

Old sport,
I swear I hear my bones cry.

A grotty morning.
Grass pecked by frost overnight,
lead fug in the air
and I'm walking a mile
in uncomfortable shoes.

The receptionist
warbles a song I don’t know.
Ten minutes of maths  
followed by the typical
compote of questions again.

Two year four children
navigate me past classrooms,
primary colours,
shaking hands and nodding heads,
facts that drizzle over me.

Hours pass, phone cries.
The answer swells blister-like.
It’s thanks but no thanks.
He pours advice, wishes well.
I hurtle back to the start.

Look at the ones
with beehives for mouths,
ejecting out opinions
to anyone caught in a net
of overworked words,
every opinion delivered
with a lethargic varnish,
each one a sting
as a glob of soap in the eyes.

But we use our voice
with our lips tightly shut.
Let the art inside us
buzz like a sneeze
waiting for release,
blast out in a fizz
of ink and smudged fingertips.
Hear the consonants trickle
like a tap not quite turned off,
the vowels rising and falling as waves.

Spill your thoughts if you must.
Make a point.
But don’t hurl them at us
with a sour taste ,
sharp as an already grimy blade.
Use them sparingly and well,
let them linger before
evaporating in a trail of steam,
as if a ***** of sunlight
before it slithers
beneath the horizon.

I think a v
oice is co
ming ba
ck to me
caught up i
n the breeze

I’d turn it int
o a song
but my words a
re like water
gone too q
uick

you know the brit
tle moments
that cru
mble as a child
crushing a flow
er in their hands

you’re the gh
ost beside me
present b
ut never
really the
re at all

morning barney
next door
muffled eff-yous
fuzz through the walls
in the mirror
my eyes awash
with scrawny red streams
my head like a sack
of gravel

that night
we talk about London
I think of the hug I will give
the clumsiness
coursing through me
like treacle
my lungs congested
with strange capital air

the subject changes
your girlfriend
guts a packet
of salt and vinegar
and we laugh
between sips of my Coke
and your drink
a sickly yellow

I let the conversation
drizzle over me
in a shower of syllables
I know my words
are jumbled
splattered slipshod
as a toddler’s painting
but I toss them in
see if they gleam

Eleven thousand
            three hundred
     sixty one miles away
in a place   I’ve never been,
     you are thinking
          of all the places
you have never   been
     or haven’t   been,
some for seasons,
          some for years.

A Paris   pomegranate   sunrise
     from the Pont des Arts,
     bright     colours     shimmying
at the   pulse   of romance.

The   blood   cell   rush   of Shibuya,
   Tokyo at night among
a river of     strange symbols,
   blinking   TV   screens.
  
Prague dredged in frost,
   feet-chatter   on cobbles
          past the Jan Hus memorial
under a   cool   periwinkle sky.

Glossy tulips in Bilbao,
   metallic curves,
   trill   of   syllables
     by the teal Nervión.

I think of you,          far away,
   same planet, different   spot,
the future washing towards us
   full of scrambled   images
and     white     noise,
a trickle of hope at your   toes,
   through my screen.

We melt into the shadows.
Our bodies tick
with an indigo light,
a time signature
specific to us,
movements fluid,
rhythmic,
shushing off the walls
like mysterious whispers,
reflect back
from our electrical figures.
It is a discovery,
the finding and feeling
of skin,
intricacies of instants
only between one and another,
like the extrication of a knot
or a golden rug unfurling.
Our breaths mingle
in the air,
a freshly made mist
full of invisible things.
Goosebumps recede,
our heartbeats tremor
with a want
for closeness,
for silent desires.

Everything better simple.
Everything better with words sliced to size.
The chasm between
waking and not being waking,
all moments minute
and colossal lined up,
delightful in their plainness.
The making of friendships,
a cinch, interests shared
and food eaten,
laughter that ricochets from wine glasses
with a shrill giggle.
Then the maintenance work, a doddle.
Dialogue runs as blood through a body.
Time to see each other.
Time to make an effort
to make time to see each other.
Clutching onto loves
before sell-by dates.
Labels disposed of
before they are even affixed.
No rise of an eyebrow
when the different ones
open their mouths,
revel in the spaces
where they don’t fit in.
Decisions made without
a flutter of uncertainty,
a bubble of anxiety
that bounces round the brain.
Everything better simplistic.
Everything delightful in their plainness.

I.

The childhood lie
of a rotund Santa Claus
who delivers gifts

--------------------
II.

Smells from the kitchen
potpourri of vegetables
steam glued to windows

--------------------
III.

Muddle of colours
wrapping paper ripped open
revealing presents

the sun signifies
a deep bloom of affection
radiant in the heart

a kiss miles in the making
geography of your love
an extra horizon away

eager heartbeats
the ache of a touch
electrifies every nerve

warmth of a lemon embrace
light swims in
now watch how you glow

and again
that cool delectable taste
of a moment

assembly line
of conversation
rolling out

all manner
of topics
with a candle on top

each one
tumbling as a domino
under the table

subtle twinge
of single life
pushed aside

to volcanic laughter
and the put to sleep
of another year

but we sip the syntax
let every vowel
soothe our blood

my life is a million things or a million and one   look at this situation   words dribbling from my fingers like raindrops     I want to feast
on every piece
   you are willing to display   to roll out and reveal
     no matter how fragile
I feel my bones groan for you   but I all I have   are these syllables stationary   on a screen
the idea of something more   an improbability
we can share our language   and breakfast cereals   and our feet will rest
on the table   with the murmur of the TV     in the background   and oh my god   I am sprinting through a blizzard   as fast as I can   but I was never a good runner     my toes are almost numb   but I want want want   to experience it all
   ripples of reality   it has bypassed me
carved a pear-shaped
lump     out of me     I am ******* in string
I am oblivious   to kisses and loving   and intimacy
   the rush   the blinding delirium     I see everybody glisten   it seems so   but every person is ravaged        
   by a manic voice   flaws written high   and glowing
I try to explain   but my handwriting
indecipherable
   a blister-free   relationship   glorious silence   delicious shiver
of something like love   between us   over our shells     I am out of it   in a make-believe land
drag me to real life   and I’ll burn   like a slab of meat     before I trip
     into a lake of salty worries

They all smoked in the garden
that night. Inhaling the chemicals,
the manic whirr in the lungs
of something toxic. Everybody there
wanted a piece. Their own segment
of you to cup in their hands,
taste whenever they pleased
as if you were red wine.
They wore woolly shirts
and stonewashed jeans. Bare feet.
Looking at you, a valuable gift
up for grabs. Voice like liquid gold.
Wishing you’d pick them
over the others, point a finger,
claim your prize. You had a hold
on their heartstrings and didn’t know it.
They said you were unattainable,
that you were hidden behind glass
and couldn’t be touched. Anger bubbled
between them, red kettle-hot.
Raised voices papercut the air.
I could understand.
You were glorious, untarnished.
A cleaner mind and cleaner arteries.
It was a rare and confusing thing
for them. Blonde hair, blue eyes
made their thoughts turn to flour.
You were sweet when all
they knew was acidic,
like a chunk of lemon
under the tongue.
As they squabbled in silence
we spoke. And still
they continued to smoke.

In the darkness
I hold the trickle of your whisper
like a falling feather

feel the contralto tick
of a heartbeat
skin against skin

holding each other
as if flowers
delicate in the breeze

tumbling through
a carmine flush
of desire

The thrill of it

nicking a Twix
from the corner shop,

a lunchbreak one day
in the mid-nineties

looking inconspicuous
between the chocolate

and packs
of smoky bacon crisps.

Sam pilfered
a Snickers, a Wispa,

we dashed outside,
ran back to school,

couldn’t believe it,
looking at our stolen goodies,

not a splash of guilt
alive in our minds.

As soon as the final cupful
of water was poured,
we’d hoist him from the plastic tub
and he’d jiggle as if electrocuted,
water flinging everywhere,
a wild tremor from head to tail.
Then we’d pat him dry
with a pink towel,
black hair glossier than ever
and he’d run
straight to the fence,
rub up against it
as if rubbing the freshness
out from his skin,
back and forth
with a goofy look on his face.

then you would be wrong.
I have many more words
to leak from my fingertips.

I think of the couple making love
to Calvin Harris songs;
what a way to annihilate
the purest of evenings.

I imagine the man with gums
coated in whisky,
the beat under his wisdom teeth,
tie slack around his neck.

I think of the body in the bath,
the stillness of such a scene,
the silent blush of crimson
like a throng of roses.

There are not just grim slivers of life.
I will catch the moments soaked in sun.
The pen is ready,
the poems will come.

Nine years later I find my old
my Geography book,

Wednesday afternoons
if I remember correct and there,

faded but still visible in blue,
T.M. 4 H.S.

and I’m transported back
to 2007 and the fizzy embrace

of a crush, the two of us
running around

in a gust of e-numbers
and holding hands under tables.

My husband calls from the other room
and the image dissolves,

snapped back to the present
as an elastic band, the initials fading further.

I talk to you
even if I have
nothing to say.

My car sounds
like it’s got food poisoning
but I drive it to your house anyway.

I wear the same dumb boots
because I wore them
the first time I saw your face.

I pile up your laughs
in my pockets so I can pull them out
if the day turns to mud.

I hate the way you’re leaving
because everyone leaves,
but I’ll keep your poem

on repeat,
the words will cool my veins,
rock me to sleep.

Part of the shop
I never venture into,

rows of bright
scented candles,
each name more
absurd than the last,

a child’s wish,
sunset breeze,
soft blanket,

since when have
they had a whiff
worthy of a jar of wax
I wonder

as I pop open
the lids of a few,
almost keel over
at the aromas

blasting up my nose.
I barely know the woman anyway,
so I ****** a
Raspberry Sorbet,

toss a twenty
on the counter.

On the TV
at the azure blue
Olympic Hockey Centre
in Deodoro,

our keeper’s
saving everything,
the Dutch careless
when faced with pressure,

the gold medal
swaying the way
of our women.
It’s the first time

I’ve paid much attention
to this stick-wielding sport
but when Webb swerves, turns,
clouts the yellow ball into the net,

I’m chuffed for us
as a cheer detonates
and there’s an ecstatic
bouncing circle of red.